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“Leading in the future will require a certain tolerance for anxiety…as we will need to grapple with issues beyond our current understanding and capacity.

The effective leaders will be those that are able to push through that anxiety and the chaos and turbulence created from the velocity of change.”

The march of the tipping points is upon us…one that is accelerating and churning with momentum. Past practice after practice are willingly lined up and hurled off the edge of the known…in favor of the vast open range of the unknown…the sweeping space of unlimited possibilities.

Our current assumptions are being challenged and questioned with inquisitive ferocity…as our narrow lens and views have turned into a kaleidoscope of panoramas and perspectives.

We lead and live in a tense and volatile time…amidst a collision of ‘Old World’ meets ‘New World’. A perplexing and disorienting time for those who have comfortably remained within and relied upon a neat and orderly way of viewing our world.

As we question the frameworks and designs of our systems and organizations under the current speed of change…we have failed to include leadership in this equation. The necessity to re-imagine and re-cast the face of leadership will be necessary to carry the torch of change forward. We have allowed leadership to lie stagnant…behind a thinly veiled smokescreen of infinitesimal progress.

In reality, the current face of leadership will necessitate exponential shifts in thinking, skill-sets, and capacity to remain agile to these modern demands.

The change forces facing today’s leaders require us to move past just rethinking leadership. It will require us to re-imagine the very face of modern leadership.

The constant influx of data, information and ever-evolving knowledge will move us farther and farther away from the world of the expert…to the world of the learner. Leaders will need to be adept and agile…able to accommodate, filter, and focus this overload to their advantage.

The future necessitates being able to lead forward with the knowledge that leadership will be ridden with the anxiety of not-knowing…of not having the answers. The anxiety of knowing that we may spend long periods of time above our heads…our skills and knowledge stretched beyond current capacity. Requiring intense collaborative efforts and support to persistently push forward…deeper into that unknown world of unlimited possibilities of what can be.

Modern leaders will have to channel this fear and anxiety…accepting they will lead from a more vulnerable place. And yet, there will be great exhilaration of letting go of what we know for what don’t know…for the opportunity to expand and grow. It will either take our breath away…or leave us hyperventilating.

But this will be a necessary process for changing the face of leadership for our new world.

Modern leadership will need to move past rethinking assumptions…beyond what we currently contemplate…to what we’ve yet to even consider. To ideas that lie beyond our grasp. Invoking questions that push us and those we lead to a new and different place…beyond what we thought we were capable of achieving.

To a place where we begin to really re-imagine the face of modern leadership.

“Under the pressure of change, leaders have to refrain from holding on to the known…especially, when stepping into the unknown is what’s needed.”